KINGSTON: The Jamaica Anti-Doping Commission (JADco) has rebuked a claim by International Olympic Committee (IOC) member Dick Pound that Jamaican athletes are difficult to test for performance-enhancing substances because they are “hard to find”.

JADCo chairman Winston Davidson described Pound’s claims as “a vicious attack on a small country”.

“What Pound said was blatantly false,” said Davidson. “We knew it was spurious, but we spent the whole day trying to find evidence of it. We don’t think they would do this to America and other bigger countries. It is a vicious attack on a small country.”

Pound, a Canadian lawyer specializing in tax law and former chief of the World Anti-Doping Agency, recently told Reuters Television that Jamaican athletes belong to “one of the groups that are hard to test”.

When asked if he was satisfied with the way Jamaica tested its athletes, Pound responded: “No, they are one of the groups that are hard to test, it is (hard) to get in and find them and so forth.

“I think they can expect, with the extraordinary results that they have had, that they will be on everybody’s radar.”

JADCo stated in a release that it has never received any complaints regarding Jamaican athletes not being found for testing.

“This is confirmed by the fact that the WADA database (Anti-Doping Administration and Management System), holding such information of all tests and missed tests, does not confirm his allegation,” the statement said.

“In addition, JADCo has never received any complaints regarding the athletes not being found for testing.”

JADCo was also concerned that former U.S. sprinter and long jumper, Carl Lewis, had questioned Jamaica’s testing system, following Usain Bolt and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce’s successful defence of their 100-metre dash titles.

JADCo said it was aware that Jamaican athletes, due to their high level of performance, would attract the attention of the world.

“Therefore, every track and field athlete representing Jamaica at the recent Olympics was tested in-competition in June 2012. In conjunction with the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), elite athletes were tested more than once. All results were negative,” said JADCo.

Pound was one of the prime candidates to succeed Juan Antonio Samaranch as IOC president in 2001, but lost to Jacques Rogge in an election. Following the election, he resigned as chairman of the IOC Finance Commission.

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